Saturday, September 13, 2008

"First ever Vegetarian Restraunt in Beijing"

Today my friend Beth and I went to see a Lama Temple in Beijing, a Buddhist temple. I being naive didn't know what the Lama meant but it's Lama as in the Dali Lama. The Temple was smack dab in the hustle and bustle (well everything in the city is in the hustle and bustle)of the city, yet when you stepped within the courtyards you couldn't hear the sounds outside at all. It was beautiful. After being out in the heat and craziness of Tienanmen square the day before, it was a treat to walk around the Buddhist Temple which was shaded and very peaceful. It took us about 3 hrs to walk through the whole Temple. That specific Lama had a lot of rooms. One room is where he studied mathematics, another numerology, or one he studied esoteric s (which was a bit funny when outside one building they accidentally spelled it exoterics). He was quite the learned man. The last building had an 80 ft. statue of Buddha carved out of a single white sandalwood tree. We weren't allowed to take photo's, which with my little camera I wouldn't have been able to capture the grandness of it anyhow. It was very impressive. The feet were huge. It was 3 stories high. After we went through the whole Temple we were a bit hungry. Across street was an alley that boasted the "first ever vegetarian restaurant in Beijing" we thought we would give it a try. It ended up being really good and our food was around 4$ a person. Cheap. The thing that was funny though is that on the menu, on the first page of this vegetarian restaurant, were lamb kabob's. The second page had a dish with beans and sausage. There were vegetarian dishes but half the menu consisted of meat dishes. The food was amazing and cheap and it was another great day in Beijing.